Modeling Motivational Dynamics with Psi/MicroPsi

58 T UTORIALS

Modeling Motivational Dynamics with Psi/MicroPsi

Joscha Bach

and Dietrich Dörner

1

HU Berlin

2

Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg

The Psi theory (Dörner 1999, Dörner et al. 2002) contributes to a gen- eral understanding of the principles of cognition. Specifically, it ex- plains how a finite set of physiological, social and cognitive demands can be functionally specified and lead to the observable heterogeneity and dynamism that characterizes human intentions, goals and decision making. It details the emergence of affective states and emotion, and their integration into perceptual, anticipatory, reflective, deliberative processes and so on. Thereby, the Psi theory defines constraints and principles for a cognitive architecture with respect to motivational con- trol, affective modulation, perception, mental representation and gen- eral organizational principles. MicroPsi (Bach 2009) is an implementa- tion of the Psi theory as an AI architecture. It offers of a simulator for spreading activation networks that represent semantic content and are grounded in sensory input and actuator output. MicroPsi agents are situated in dynamic simulation environments and implement a moti- vational system with a set of physiological, social and cognitive drives, and have been applied for experiments in affective computing, catego- rization and multi-agent interaction.

The tutorial will give an overview over the general principles and core assumptions of the Psi theory, and introduce our implementation approaches, which can either be directly used, or adapted for other com- putational models of autonomous behavior, affective modulation and grounded representation.

References

Dörner, D. (1999). Bauplan für eine Seele. Reinbeck: Rowohlt

Dörner, D., Bartl, C., Detje, F., Gerdes, J., Halcour, (2002). Die Mechanik des Seelenwagens.

Handlungsregulation. Verlag Hans Huber, Bern

Bach, J. (2009). Principles of Synthetic Intelligence. Psi, an architecture of motivated cog- nition. Oxford University Press.

https://doi.org/10.20378/irbo-51770